Stephen Curry and the Defiance of Adjectives

It escapes words.

Sure the usual hyperbolic descriptions fit: "unbelievable", "extraordinary", "transcendent".

But an attempt to verbally illustrate what Stephen Curry did to the Oklahoma City Thunder last night - and is doing to the NBA in general right now - is to presume that we've seen something like this before and thus have words to accurately portray it. We don't.

It's tough, almost futile, to write this piece. My mind is still warped and coming to terms with the real-life NBA Jam game we watched last night, and attempting to do something I'm openly admitting shouldn't be possible. Maybe it's best to let his play speak for itself...

But just getting your head around it all seems difficult, like we just witnessed a glitch in reality. It had to have happened though; it couldn't have been made up. If last night's script landed on a Hollywood exec's desk, it would be laughed out the door as too far-fetched.

The stage couldn't have been set up better: The Warriors were on a record-setting pace after 50 games; where every loss mattered. They were in tough, down double-digits on the road against one of the few teams who could truly challenge them. Not only were they were weary - having not played a home game in three weeks - but to make matters worse, their emotional lynchpin (and 2nd-best player) lost his shit at halftime and stopped shooting.

Curry proceeded to roll his ankle mid 3rd-quarter, and had Russell Westbrook land on it a second later. It was a scary moment that left anyone familiar with Curry's ankle history feeling uneasy. Then the MVP played it out as no screenwriter could've contrived:

He came back limping noticeably, but began draining a barrage of comically absurd three-pointers, toying with defenders; equal parts jovial playground artist and Leon The Professional as he clawed into - and eventually overtook - the Thunder's lead. After absorbing his reality-altering performance, so many things stick with me, but don't even resonate the most:

See, it's not that Curry dropped 31 points after returning, draining attempt after attempt that would've had any other player in the World instantly yanked.

It's not that he led a dramatic comeback on the road; one that would've been over in regulation if Golden State hadn't missed about 47 Curry-created open layups in the 2nd half.

It's not even that he happened to tie an all-time record for threes in a game, or broke his own record for threes in a season with 24 games still to play.

And somehow it isn't that he hit the ballsiest game-winner in NBA history; not calling the available timeout, casually jogging upcourt and pulling up from the fringe of OKC's midcourt logo with almost 3 seconds left on the clock (note that the game was tied).

It's that none of this should really surprise us.

Curry has specialized in the indescribable to such an extent this year that this doesn't really come as a huge shock, absurd as that may sound.

We've been spoiled. We've gotten too used to these Human Torch antics: lobbing attempts at the net like red shells in Mario Kart, scoring 20 points in 5 mins on 7 shots or whatever, casually canning jumpers from halfcourt and beyond with unseen routineness.

Especially now, coming off games of 36. 42 and 51 points; on a destructive path in the wake of a new round of misguided criticisms from former players. Curry claims to find the commentary "annoying", but it clearly fuels a fire in him, one we should all hope continues to be fed if it produces explosions like this.

Stephen Curry is revolutionizing basketball; there's no other way to put it. Maybe we'll eventually figure out how to properly describe it, but for now we should be content with just seeing what he'll do next.

The Best Dunk Contest Ever.

I figured I should cut to the chase here and let title speak for itself. 

Apologies to Mike and 'Nique. Too bad for Vince and the No-Contest in Oakland.

The circus that Zach LaVine and Aaron Gordon just put on was the most innovative, thrilling and generally jaw-dropping display in the history of NBA All-Star Weekend. Regardless of Will Barton and Andre Drummond's somewhat-likely flameouts, this was always going to be a two-man show that the league smartly set up by pitting the reigning champ and possible Dunk Contest GOAT against a guy with well-documented past exploits.

Even the most naive optimists couldn't have fathomed the level on which LaVine and Gordon delivered; the script they wrote tonight was too ridiculous for anyone else to conceive. We actually watched a guy pass the ball underneath both his legs while jumping over his mascot's head. And he didn't win.

It's the boundless creativity that separated this contest from the hallowed Wilkins/Jordan showdowns of the 80s. Back then, the surface of contest dunking was only being scratched and it wasn't that tough for transcendent athletes like those guys to deliver something we'd never seen. But there's really only so much a guy can do with a ball in mid-air while also slamming it into a ten-foot hoop. A lack of creative progress crippled the Dunk Contest for years; most forays into new dunking realms ended with a painful blooper reel of botched attempts.

The Lavine & Gordon Show constantly pushed the envelope though; time after time delivering not only never-before-seen dunks, but ones that were put down crisply on the first or second attempt while the anticipation was still peaking. Despite Shaq's stingy judging, there were more 50's being thrown up than a circa-2004 G Unit song. Andrew Wiggins looked like he'd just watched a

cherished pet get hit by a car.

Their efforts were so insane that determining a winner took double overtime, for which both competitors somehow had extra shells in the chamber after their imaginative plans unfolded. While LaVine ultimately took the crown, Gordon matched - and perhaps surpassed - him dunk-for-dunk throughout, assisted by Stuff the Magic Dragon, easily the NBA's best-named mascot, and now also the runaway best cameo ever in the Dunk Contest.

It's easy to say that Gordon was robbed - as plenty about the internet have done in the half-day since. His energy was boundless, his creativity was limitless, his execution was spot-on, and his head was quite literally above the fucking rim on most of his dunks. What he did last night would've toppled just about any dunker in the contest's history.

But perhaps the lone exception is LaVine. He's an absolute zenith of contest dunking. The boundaries

of possibility that he stretches so casually are changing the game. As Kenny Smith pointed out last night, it used to be a big deal when Dr. J or Mike dunked from the free-throw line, but LaVine just used their iconic moment as an easel: I'll catch an alley-oop from there. Then I'll windmill. Next I'll put the put the ball through my legs from a step inside it. And act all "no biggie" while my teammates spaz out like 4-year-olds at a bouncy castle.

Last night not only brought the Dunk Contest "back" but injected an aggressive HGH schedule into its veins. Any of the rumblings that the 3-Point Shootout becoming All-Star Saturday's main card were viciously gunned down. It was a thrilling back-and-forth joust, a legendary game of "Can You Top This?", and may even be guilty of setting the bar too high for the future.

LaVine, Gordon, and the NBA really outdid themselves last night. There's lots of superlatives to lace the events with, but the result is simple: the league has never seen a better Dunk Contest.